Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. Aircraft includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air balloons and airships.
The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is an American twin-engine all-weather stealth fighter aircraft developed and produced for the United States Air Force (USAF). As a product of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program the aircraft was designed as an air superiority fighter, but also incorporates ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while program partner Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is an American wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After dropping its unconventional Sonic Cruiser project, Boeing announced the conventional 7E7 on January 29, 2003, which focused largely on efficiency. The program was launched on April 26, 2004, with an order for 50 aircraft from All Nippon Airways (ANA), targeting a 2008 introduction. On July 8, 2007, a prototype 787 without major operating systems was rolled out; subsequently the aircraft experienced multiple delays, until its maiden flight on December 15, 2009. Type certification was received in August 2011, and the first 787-8 was delivered in September 2011 before entering commercial service on October 26, 2011, with ANA.
Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah. On August 31, 1988, the flight, using a Boeing 727-200 series aircraft, crashed during takeoff, resulting in 14 deaths and 76 injuries among the 108 on board.
Flash Airlines Flight 604 was a charter flight from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport in Egypt to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France, with a stop-over at Cairo International Airport, provided by Egyptian private charter company Flash Airlines. On 3 January 2004, the Boeing 737-300 that was operating the route crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport, killing all 135 passengers, most of whom were French tourists, and all thirteen crew members. The findings of the crash investigation were controversial, with accident investigators from the different countries involved unable to agree on the cause of the accident.
The General Electric GEnx is an advanced dual rotor, axial flow, high-bypass turbofan jet engine in production by GE Aerospace for the Boeing 747-8 and 787. The GEnx succeeded the CF6 in GE's product line.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 series is a family of business jets developed by Canadair after a Bill Lear concept, and then produced from 1986 by its new owner, Bombardier Aerospace. At the end of 1975, Canadair began funding the development of LearStar 600, and then bought the design for a wide-cabin business jet in April 1976. On 29 October, the programme was launched, backed by the Canadian federal government, and designed to comply with new FAR part 25 standards.
SIA Engineering Company Limited is a Singaporean company specializing in aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services in the Asia-Pacific. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Singapore Airlines Group (SIA), formed in 1992 by separating SIA's engineering division.
Crew resource management or cockpit resource management (CRM) is a set of training procedures for use in environments where human error can have devastating effects. CRM is primarily used for improving aviation safety and focuses on interpersonal communication, leadership, and decision making in aircraft cockpits. Its founder is David Beaty, a former Royal Air Force and a BOAC pilot who wrote The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents (1969). Despite the considerable development of electronic aids since then, many principles he developed continue to prove effective.
Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated (ARINC), established in 1929, was a major provider of transport communications and systems engineering solutions for eight industries: aviation, airports, defense, government, healthcare, networks, security, and transportation. ARINC had installed computer data networks in police cars and railroad cars and also maintains the standards for line-replaceable units.
United Airlines Flight 811 was a regularly scheduled international flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, with intermediate stops at Honolulu and Auckland. On February 24, 1989, the Boeing 747-122 serving the flight experienced a cargo-door failure in flight shortly after leaving Honolulu. The resulting explosive decompression blew out several rows of seats, killing nine passengers. The aircraft returned to Honolulu and landed without further incident.
Bellview Airlines Flight 210 was a scheduled Nigerian domestic passenger flight of a Boeing 737-200 airliner from Lagos to Abuja, operated by Lagos-based Bellview Airlines. On 22 October 2005, the aircraft nose-dived and crashed at high speed just a few minutes after take-off, killing all 117 people on board.
The Boeing A160 Hummingbird is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) helicopter. Its design incorporates many new technologies never before used in helicopters, allowing for greater endurance and altitude than any helicopter currently in operation.
The Future Air Navigation System (FANS) is an avionics system which provides direct data link communication between the pilot and the air traffic controller. The communications include air traffic control clearances, pilot requests and position reporting. In the FANS-B equipped Airbus A320 family aircraft, an Air Traffic Services Unit (ATSU) and a VHF Data Link radio (VDR3) in the avionics rack and two data link control and display units (DCDUs) in the cockpit enable the flight crew to read and answer the controller–pilot data link communications (CPDLC) messages received from the ground.
An Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) is a key component of the integrated Air Data Inertial Reference System (ADIRS), which supplies air data and inertial reference information to the pilots' electronic flight instrument system displays as well as other systems on the aircraft such as the engines, autopilot, aircraft flight control system and landing gear systems. An ADIRU acts as a single, fault tolerant source of navigational data for both pilots of an aircraft. It may be complemented by a secondary attitude air data reference unit (SAARU), as in the Boeing 777 design.
Aircraft maintenance is the performance of tasks required to ensure the continuing airworthiness of an aircraft or aircraft part, including overhaul, inspection, replacement, defect rectification, and the embodiment of modifications, compliance with airworthiness directives and repair.
Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is similar, but deals with the electronics side of aerospace engineering.
In aeronautics, loss of control (LOC) is the unintended departure of an aircraft from controlled flight and is a significant factor in several aviation accidents worldwide. In 2015 it was the leading cause of general aviation accidents. Loss of control may be the result of mechanical failure, external disturbances, aircraft upset conditions, or inappropriate crew actions or responses.
The Boeing 737 MAX passenger airliner was grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 – longer in many jurisdictions – after 346 people died in two similar crashes in less than five months: Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019. The Federal Aviation Administration initially affirmed the MAX's continued airworthiness, claiming to have insufficient evidence of accident similarities. By March 13, the FAA followed behind 51 concerned regulators in deciding to ground the aircraft. All 387 aircraft delivered to airlines were grounded by March 18.
An in-flight breakup is a catastrophic failure of an aircraft structure that causes it to break apart in mid-air. This can result in the death of all occupants and the destruction of the aircraft. In-flight breakups are rare but devastating events that can be caused by various factors.
